


Step in to the future

by sapoeysap



Category: Power Rangers Dino Thunder
Genre: Gen, School Reunion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-03
Updated: 2017-01-03
Packaged: 2018-09-14 11:58:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,885
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9180538
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sapoeysap/pseuds/sapoeysap
Summary: Tommy hates how old he's getting. Never mind the 20 year Reefside High School Reunion invitation glaring at him from the counter.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [gingayellow](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gingayellow/gifts).



> I gave Tommy tattoos because it makes me giggle in Zeo/Turbo whenever you can see them try and cover them up poorly. And as a reasoning behind all the long sleeves he wears. I kinda took the facts given in History and abused them a little. For artistic purposes ya'know.

The reflection in the mirror is unforgiving, skins started to wrinkle and sag, hairline may or may not be receding. The reasoning behind putting a mirror next to the front door has gone from his mind, its doing nothing today but serve as a reminder of how old he is getting. Add on the invitation glaring at him from the cabinet side below the mirror, and this day was already proving to be too much of a headache, and It wasn’t even 8am. Tommy Oliver was officially too old for this worlds bullshit.

Reefside High is still the same, his classroom the same layout, with additions of interactive whiteboards, and some fancy computer Hayley herself had to come in and teach him how to use.  The same framed pictures are on his desk, as they have been for coming up twenty years. The other teachers mock him for not having any pictures of his kids up, but Principal Randell backs him up, she’s the only one that really understands the importance. The photo in the smallest frame is a polaroid, from 30 years ago, of his first team, the first friends he truly had. The second is of his fourth team, the students who had saved the world under his guidance. All the faces smiling at him as he settles behind his desk for another day off lessons. He can hear Jason’s voice in his head telling him how old he looks, he can also hear his own reply off ‘Fuck off Jase, like you look any better’. The students trickle in, slow ‘Morning Dr. O’ echoing around the classroom. That’s when he clocks the post it note stuck to the computer. ‘Tattoo Appointment – 6.40 TONIGHT’. That’s some motivation to make it through the day.

He walks back into his house at about nine thirty in the evening, arm slightly stinging, but a pain he’s used to the amount of times he has gone through the process. As he drops his car keys into the bowl on the side, he fingers the invitation so ignored this morning.

_Dr Tommy Oliver_

_You are invited to Reefside High’s class of 04’ High School Reunion at Ziktor Café on the 10/20/2024 at 5pm_

_From event planner!  Cassidy Cornell x_

Fumbling around for his phone he calls Hayley, she doesn’t pick up so he drops her an IM, offering his assistance with the set up. She replies as he’s settling into bed. **No but you better be here early tomorrow anyway** and he rolls over to fall asleep, carefully avoiding his stinging arm.

* * *

 

The Café lost its ‘Cyberspace’ moniker around 2008, Hayley kept it going though, with thanks to a mysterious benefactor by the initials K.F. An extension had been added in 2016, making the main space a little larger, but still keeping the open bay windows. It was still a place for all the Reefside students to come and stay out of trouble, and maybe get a job If they were lucky. Business was also helped by the fact that it was regularly advertised for free by Cassidy Cornell on her flagship 10’o clock news show. And occasionally Devin kept Hayley in business the amount of coffee he goes through when Cassidy is really pushing him. Tommy is immediately greeted by a very chipper Cassidy and a tablet at the door, she’s tapping things out rapidly. Ordering him to do bits and bobs, Hayley barely gets a hello in, and he clocks Devin in the corner helping set up the stage for a performance.

Tommy is nervous. It’s been at least 5 years since he saw his team, he’d reasoned it was because he was older than them, still just their teacher in their minds, after all he kept in contact with his other teams. But the IM’s and gifts his former students still sent him proved differently. The soccer ball that just whacked his head proved differently.

Conner McKnight somehow looks the same, as he did 20 years ago, His boyish charm has just turned into a well-groomed beard and a mutated into a slightly cocky attitude. He still looked like a red ranger, still acted like one. Conner had played soccer for a couple years over in England for a reasonably good team. Retired and retreated back to Reefside living off the crazy amount of money he had made playing soccer, with a bonus from his very active social media accounts. The last Tommy had seen of Conner was at a Red Ranger get together someone, maybe Wes had thrown a few years ago. It was nice to see him again under more normal pretence. Hugs are exchanged, Conner helps Hayley move some heavy things, playful banter that Dr O was pushing 50 and shouldn’t be allowed. The soccer ball Conner received to the head was well aimed and well deserved.

Trent walks in under the radar, hidden in with a bunch of other arriving former students. Manages to get a drink, and help a fumbling waiter before he’s spotted by anyone. He’s harder to recognise, his hair long, placed in a fashionable ponytail bun combination. But the white shirt should give him away. Tommy hates how he was ruthlessly mocked for his long hair, but on Trent it somehow looks amazing. Up-close Tommy realises that Trent’s shirt is flecked with 4 colours, staining the crystal white with red, blue, yellow and black. He snorts at the subtle, Trent shrugs. 

“Some fan gave it to me after my superhero comic went big, said he always felt I was in tune with these colours more than anything else” Trent says it with a laugh and a pointed look as if to say how right that fan was. But then his eyes are trailing across the room at the sudden flicker of cameras flashing. Kira Ford strolls in, hair all loose and long, master of an eyeliner style that by all accounts died a long time ago, but looking like the most beautiful girl in the world. This is when it hits Tommy of how proud he is off all his little Dino Thunder kids. Kira’s guitar is strapped over her back, she ignores everyone else in the room, and strolls casually over to the little collected group of Trent, Conner and Dr O.

Kira made it big, on some strand of faith that a blonde girl in pink that she can’t quite remember told her that she would become a famous singer. That and it was aided by the fact that after she helped save San Angles, Adam Park had put her in contact with Tanya Sloan and the former yellow Zeo ranger took her on as an opening act for her world tour. Kira was one of those humble singers, she never forgot her roots, made sure to touch base back in Reefside often enough. But she was still the person Tommy hadn’t seen in the longest, and in that stretch of years she had grown up some more, even though she was a regular fixture on TV. The guitar slung on her back indicated that she was the act Devin had been setting up for, in an echo of her role 20 years ago as they actually graduated.

Ethan is the last to walk in, appearing out of nowhere as they converse with each other in a corner. He sneaks in so subtly that they continue the conversation until Conner goes “Well Ethan will back me up, won’t you” followed by sputters as the realisation that Ethan was there dawned. The blue dino ranger had moved out to Silicon Valley at the height of smartphone apps, and then rode the second dotcom bubble out of Silicon Valley and moved into some technological experiment city near Silver Hills that went by the name of New Tech. Tommy knew from occasionally looks at Conner’s social media that Ethan frequently visited their former Red.

He’s snapped out of his reminiscing by Conner’s calls for a photo, Devin swoops over, grabbing Conner’s device with the offer of taking the picture, Kira calls Hayley over, and suddenly Tommy has a new photo for his desk (and maybe a few hundred new followers on his lacklustre social media as a pushback from people searching for pictures of Conner)

Hayley nudges his arms where under the long sleeves she knows a fresh tattoo lies. Panic creeps in, nobody but Hayley is aware of the myriad of colours that stain his skin, always hidden by long sleeves as school policy. He also knows he has to show his team the new mark on his skin, and to prove a distraction from Conner’s lengthy parable about how short his hair was now and how Trent looked better with long hair than he ever did.

“Yes, well thank you Conner, for this delightful information my mirror reminds me off everyone morning.”

Ethan laughs, patting Dr. O on the back.

“I have something to show you all anyway”

The gasps that he receives when he pulls up his sleeve are borderline hysterical, and Hayley has succumbed to the giggles. Kira slaps her arm playfully, with a look that says ‘you knew didn’t you’ to which Hayley can only nod through the subsiding giggles.

He winces as he pulls the bandage off. Revealing the logo of their ranger team.

It prompts a discussion for a good while. Trent promising to design another tattoo for him as a little project. And then the conversation drifts off.

You would think that being apart for so long would provoke conversation but they realise they have nothing more to say. But somehow its less awkward than it should be. Its more reflective than anything else. A realisation that they are a team still, drawn together by the magical ways of the Morphin Grid. But more than that, drawn together by the weird ways friendship works. They all whoop and cheer for Kira’s song, she dedicates it jokingly to the ‘Rangers that saved the day while they were all still in High School’ and that one time the principle and the science teacher had a fight in the playground. Everyone laughs, raising a toast to those good ol’ rangers.

Hayley lets them stay later than everyone else with the addition of Cassidy and Devin. They part ways after Trent makes a comment that its ‘way past Dr O’s bedtime’ But it’s during the goodbyes that it finally hits home, that they don’t want to be split up just yet. Cassidy and Devin head home, but not before she hands them another invitation, to a renewal of the twos wedding vows in a few months. And then they all end up back where it all began, in the basement of their science teachers house, watching old videos of their ranger days projected onto the big screen. Exchanged contact information and renewed promises to stay in touch with one another this time. Because drifting apart actually isn’t that fun. And after a few too many beers, there sensible science teacher might off called his tattoo artist and booked them all in for an appointment tomorrow, so they can get matching little tattoos as a permeant reminder of the bond they shared that ran deeper than the colours they once wore.

**Author's Note:**

> If you work out where the title is from I will love you forever.


End file.
